Legacies of a secret war

One day, five children went out to play. Only three came back.

Laos is the most heavily bombed country in the world: an oft forgotten legacy of the Vietnam war. As part of anti-communist operations, between 1964 and 1973, the US dropped an average of one planeload of bombs every eight minutes for almost a decade, the majority of which remain a live threat to this day. The US called this a ‘Secret War’: Laos was technically a neutral country. While Lao government support is offered directly to survivors, unexploded munitions have wide-reaching social implications that remain unacknowledged and unaddressed. Around half of all victims are children. The majority of adult survivors are men, leaving women to shoulder not only traditional domestic and care roles but the family’s economic burden largely by themselves. This short film and documentary photography series visualises the longstanding, unseen toll of unexploded ordnance on survivors in rural Laos.

Shot for UNDP.